EU competition officials are back to their tough old selves as Europe emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic

Planned EU trade defense tariffs have become more likely to sail through approval processes without opposition during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ryanair has suffered a setback in its challenge to the EU’s state aid response to the Covid-19 pandemic, after the EU’s lower court rejected its appeals.

As many mark the 40th anniversary of the first Data Protection Day, the importance of safeguarding sensitive personal data during the Covid-19 pandemic is top of mind.

US SEC Chairman Nominee Gary Gensler is sure to grapple with money-market mutual fund and Treasury market reforms in the wake of the pandemic.

Insurers’ defeat at the hands of the UK's top judges against small businesses claiming Covid-19 payouts could be the first step toward irreversible change for the sector.

Mergers and US antitrust filings are expected to remain strong through the first half of 2021, fueled by acquisitions in the wake of the global pandemic.

Just a few months into the job, Singapore’s antitrust chief had to quickly adjust to changing realities amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Insurers could face a defeat on a key legal ruling on whether policyholders were restricted in accessing their place of business during the height of the UK’s Covid-19 outbreak.

The Financial Stability Board’s identification of US shortcomings in money-market mutual funds oversight backs Democratic policymakers’ criticisms.

After the Philippine privacy regulator issued another harsh warning against privacy violations, members of a data protection group began raising questions.

US banks’ dividend payments would significantly cut into firms’ capital and lending ability over the life of the pandemic, Federal Reserve researchers said.

The US Federal Reserve’s planned instant-payments service is seeking nationwide reach to ensure speedy government relief.

The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a raft of regulatory measures addressing antitrust and state-subsidy programs, as well as mergers and acquisitions.

The EU plans to extend its temporary Covid-19 waiver on airport slot rules.

EU clean-energy investors shouldn’t hold their breath for a deal on planned bloc-wide rules to make climate neutrality by 2050 legally binding.

A planned EU levy on carbon-intensive imports is likely to be proposed next year.

Shippers and airlines operating in the EU have been reminded that the bloc plans to propose an expansion of its Emissions Trading System.

A jury in a US court accepted claims that Yevgeniy Nikulin was responsible for the hacking of tech companies LinkedIn and Dropbox.

Coronavirus infections are mounting, and so are threats to Americans’ privacy. FTC member Christine Wilson is on a mission to decry the latter.

US investor stampedes from money-market mutual funds & Treasuries during the pandemic panic in March highlight the need for regulatory fixes in those markets.

Football clubs around Europe are turning to antitrust rules in a bid to avoid relegation or secure a spot in lucrative European competitions.

Lossmaking small businesses will be eligible to receive EU support under the temporary Covid-19 state aid framework.

FCA’s response to Commerzbank may set the tone for future enforcement.

Lufthansa’s 9 billion-euro bailout package, approved by the European Commission and shareholders, will be talked about for years to come.

A mammoth fine dished out to Commerzbank by the UK financial services regulator is a taste of things to come, as fraud is driven by Covid-19.

Should the state aid granted to Chinese companies prompt regulatory responses by the EU?

The US Federal Reserve may include nonprofits in its pending Main Street Lending Program for small and mid-sized businesses.

A planned mass damages claim against UK train operators over fares won’t be derailed.

Governments are scrambling to roll out contact-tracing mobile tech to enable tracking of those exposed to Covid-19.

The EU steel, transport and construction industries should be at the forefront of an “acceleration” of initiatives aimed at curbing emissions.

Insurer Hiscox is being sued by a group of EU businesses for failing to pay out for a coronavirus hit to business.

Covid-19 has wreaked regulatory havoc, with the agencies responsible for reviewing mergers and acquisitions facing problems.

The US Federal Reserve’s current stress tests on the largest banks include an assessment of the potential effect of the pandemic on commercial real estate.

The US Federal Reserve is weeks away from getting loan facilities for mid-sized businesses, as well as states and localities, up and running.

Pity the EU merger officials whose work sets them the near-impossible task of predicting how the world economy will look after Covid-19.

China's antitrust regulator doesn't consider the economic hardship brought by the Covid-19 as a legitimate mitigating factor to reduce fines.

As governments respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, fears are mounting that state intervention to prop up specific businesses could harm competition.

The US Department of Justice withdrew comments it filed last week in a trade remedy investigation on mattresses from eight countries.

The call for a merger moratorium due to the novel coronavirus pandemic likely won’t become law.

An interagency panel to monitor Mexico’s labor reforms. A rule to delay compliance for some auto companies.

Three million Australians have downloaded the government’s CovidSafe contact tracing app in three days, as the government followed an Asia-Pacific wave.

Global banks’ use of payouts such as dividends, share buybacks and bonuses should be restricted.

Retailers exploiting the coronavirus outbreak with price hikes could soon see tougher enforcement by the UK CMA

Companies supplying the government with essential products during the pandemic must pay extra attention to their negotiations and pricing.

A “Wild West” approach to healthcare procurement during the Covid-19 crisis led an antibribery group to fast-track pandemic-linked corruption research.

As a number of governments across the Asia-Pacific region struggle with how to ensure they still have a functioning aviation industry once Covid-19 restrictions ease.

Recently, international lenders have extended debt relief to the world's poorest countries, but many of those countries are also among the world's most corrupt.

While there have been scores of national support measures approved under the EU's temporary coronavirus state aid framework, strikingly only Denmark has made extensive use of an alternative mechanism.

The patchy international response to the Covid-19 pandemic was underscored by the Group of 20 economic powers’ approach to vulnerable countries’ needs.

Deliveroo demonstrated the impact the coronavirus is having on antitrust priorities with news that Amazon's investment in the outfit has provisionally cleared.

Smartphones’ potential in disease tracking lies in two areas: tracing populace movements, and Bluetooth-enabled proximity tracking.

Companies will suffer financial loss and potential enforcement action unless whistleblowing measures are taken seriously during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Contact-tracing apps will benefit from a “pan-European & coordinated approach” to regulation after European data-protection authorities endorsed the EC’s draft guidance.

The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had failed as of a year ago to develop an agency-wide readiness or personnel-training plan for economic crises.

With Apple & Google to collaborate on covid19 tracing smartphone technology, many of the world's governments are weighing the privacy implications of using mobiles.

Apple and Google revealed plans today to turn iOS and Android smartphones into coronavirus threat-detectors.

Connecticut, New York, Florida and other US states are investigating whether Zoom, the videoconferencing platform that’s exploded in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic, has violated any laws by failing to protect users’ privacy and secure its systems, the Connecticut attorney general announced.

Energizer Holdings and Duracell say their operations won’t be able to meet an upcoming surge of demand for batteries during the coronavirus pandemic.

Online platforms including Twitter, Facebook and Google’s YouTube are in the spotlight over their role as global vectors for misinformation related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Major UK banks may have acquiesced yesterday to a Bank of England request to ditch dividend payments amid the Covid-19 crisis. But on a further request to withhold lucrative staff bonuses they have been conspicuously quiet. How far they will try to resist remains to be seen.

Like many online services, Twitter has seen traffic surge during the Covid-19 pandemic, even as its physical infrastructure, advertising revenue and policy rules have come under unprecedented pressure.

The European Commission is planning to temporarily suspend tariffs and value-added tax on imported protective medical equipment in response to the worsening Covid-19 crisis, MLex has learned.

Companies face an unprecedented economic downturn amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and with it, unprecedented pressure to stay afloat as revenue dwindles. The reduction of business opportunities, particularly in the hard-hit developing world, will likely see companies turn to bribery to secure cash.

It’s less than 10 days since Australia’s competition regulator said it was anticipating an increase in applications from companies seeking exemptions from competition laws to ensure they not only deliver essential services to citizens during the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus, but survive the economic uncertainty caused by the global pandemic

Whistleblowers wishing to report fraud, bribery and other violations to the US Securities and Exchange Commission can still do so, and the commission will still process the reports in the face of coronavirus protection protocols, the SEC said.

Netflix, Google’s YouTube and Disney have raced to keep Europe’s broadband networks from seizing up by voluntarily degrading the quality of their streaming services as Covid-19 related stay-at-home orders have prompted a surge in demand for video conferencing, gaming and distance learning.

The financial services industry is scrambling to persuade policymakers around the world that there is no need to close markets, despite daily tumbles in stocks. But their fate may have already been sealed.

US Libor transition authorities are unlikely to get a change in law they hoped would come this year from New York state authorities who are giving urgent priority to the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impacts.

European banks are seeing impending regulations and information demands cast aside, as their supervisors clear the decks for lenders to focus on leading the economic fight against coronavirus.

Europe’s airlines, struck down by the Covid-19 pandemic, shouldn’t expect a free rein from the European Commission on receiving emergency bailouts from national governments.

Novel coronavirus is the first global pandemic to arrive in an era when nearly the entire population can be tracked in real time, thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones and social media. The question facing non-authoritarian governments is how heavily to draw on that trove of private sector data in a bid to limit the deadly disease.

Players in the pharmaceutical and medical industries are under scrutiny in Brazil for increasing their prices in a "non-reasonable and disproportionate way” in relation to product demand as Covid-19 spreads in the country, the competition authority's top investigator, Alexandre Cordeiro, told MLex.

The US Federal Reserve’s encouragement of banks to stop exceeding capital requirements and use the surplus to lend to virus-affected borrowers received a conditional welcome from economists who asserted that the central bank needs to be clearer about what it will allow.

Banks’ operations, exposures and potentially their capital rules could all be affected by the worldwide spread of the Covid-19 virus, even as global regulators insist the fundamentals of financial stability remain sound.